February 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (February 13, 1776).

“FATHER ABRAHAM’s ALMANACK, For the Year of our LORD 1776.”

John Dunlap, the printer of Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette, apparently had surplus copies of “FATHER ABRAHAM’s ALMANACK, For the Year of our LORD 1776,” that he hoped to sell in the middle of February of that year.  Although the “Astronomical Calculations by the ingenious DAVID RITTENHOUSE” for the first six weeks of the year were no longer of use to readers, the rest of the contents still had value.  Hoping to move some or all the remaining copies out of his printing office in Baltimore, Dunlap once again placed an advertisement that had first appeared in Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette in October, well before the new year began and readers would refer to the calendars and astronomical calculations in the handy reference manual.  Prospective customers knew that the phrase “Just Published” at the beginning of the advertisement merely meant that copies were available to purchase, not that the almanacs just came off the press.

In addition to operating a printing shop and publishing a newspaper in Baltimore, Dunlap also ran a printing shop in Philadelphia.  It was there, according to his advertisement, that he had printed the almanac and then sent copies to his printing office in Baltimore.  He had also advertised the almanac in the newspaper he published in Philadelphia, Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  He did not, however, continue running advertisements for the almanac in that newspaper in February 1776.  Perhaps he sold out of copies in Philadelphia.  After all, he established his printing office and newspaper there before his second printing office and newspaper in Baltimore.  Consumers in Philadelphia and its hinterlands had greater familiarity with Dunlap, the printer, and Rittenhouse, the astronomer and mathematician who did the calculations for the almanac.  Alternately, Dunlap may not have continued advertising the almanac in the newspaper published at his printing office in Philadelphia because that location received a heavier volume of advertisements.  The printer may have determined that the revenue generated from advertisements submitted by customers outweighed any potential revenue from advertising the almanac once again.  With limited amount of space in each issue, delivering news also took precedence over yet another advertisement for the almanac.  Dunlap and those who labored in his printing offices may have had other reasons for continuing to advertise the almanac in Baltimore but not in Philadelphia.  Whatever the explanation, the advertisement in Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette became a familiar sight to readers over the course of several months.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 13, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (February 13, 1776).

February 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (January 12, 1776).

“JOHN RICHARDSON’s HARDWARE and JEWELLERY STORE.”

John Richardson ran an advertisement for his “HARDWARE and JEWELLERY STORE” in the February 12, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  He was not alone in his marketing efforts.  Richard Sause also placed an advertisement for a “JEWELLERY, CUTLERY, HARD-WARE, and HABERDASHERY STORE.”  Both emphasized consumer choice as a marketing strategy, but they deployed very different formats in demonstrating the choices they offered to customers.

The bulk of Richardson’s advertisement consisted of a dense paragraph of text that listed his inventory, including a “neat and general assortment of jewellery, and jewellers materials; watches and watch materials, good choice of gilt and plated buckles, metal and steel buckles; materials for coach-makers, ditto for saddlers and cabinet-makers; … ladies pocket books, hand vices, plyers, nut crackers, buckle patterns, metal shoe clasps, lables for bottles, mother of pearl tea tongs, [and] gilt sleeve buttons.”  It was an array of merchandise that Richardson invited readers to imagine and, hopefully, examine for themselves.

Sause listed even more items in his advertisement, yet that was not the only reason that it occupied more than twice as much space on the page.  Rather than cram everything together in a single paragraph, Sause opted to list small collections of items – one, two, or three at a time – together yet on separate lines.  Those lists sometimes overflowed onto indented second and subsequent lines; the indentations provided a visual cue that further distinguished the wares that Sause promoted.  For instance, the entry for “Gold lace, tinsel and com- / mon watch braids” did not run into the next entry for “Silver corals, and a variety of / fashionable silver buckles.”  Sause also divided his advertisement into two columns (just as he had done in a previous advertisement), making it even more visually distinctive.

Although Richardson and Sause sold similar merchandise and both made appeals to consumer choice, they made different decisions about how to present their goods to prospective customers in the public prints.  Richardson may have opted for economy by purchasing less space in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, while Sause, drawing on experience, could have considered it worth the investment to take up more space in the newspaper.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 12, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (February 12, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published February 12, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (February 12, 1776).

February 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Providence Gazette (February 10, 1776).

“A House of Entertainment in Providence.”

When John Fry relocated from Newport to Providence, he ran an advertisement in the Providence Gazette to “acquaint his Friends, and the Public in general, that he has opened a House of Entertainment … a little below the Great Bridge.”  To aid prospective patrons in finding the establishment where he “proposes to victual and lodge Gentlemen and Ladies,” he clarified that they should seek “the House owned by Mr. James Lovett.”  In addition to food and rooms available to residents of Providence and travelers to the town, Fry “has likewise good Accommodations for Horses, and will engage to keep them in the best Manner.”

While Fry certainly hoped to attract local patrons to spend some of their leisure time at his “House of Entertainment,” he also depended on the circulation of the Providence Gazette far beyond the town to generate business among travelers.  At the time, it was one of only two newspapers printed in Rhode Island … and the Newport Mercury, the other newspaper, experienced disruptions in publication in the early months of 1776.  Sometimes Solomon Southwick, the printer, only had enough paper for a half sheet edition of two pages rather than the usual four; other times he missed a week completely.  Such had been the case for several newspapers since the war began in April 1775.  The Providence Gazette previously had readers in Newport, but it became an even more important vehicle for disseminating news and advertisements when the Newport Mercury experienced disruptions.  Fry no doubt intended for “his Friends” in Newport who planned to visit Providence to see his advertisement in the Providence Gazette; he leveraged their familiarity with him when selecting where to eat and sleep when they came to his new town.  Yet he also addressed “the Public in general” throughout Rhode Island as well as eastern Connecticut and central and southeastern Massachusetts, knowing that the Providence Gazettecirculated in many towns in the region.

February 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

Who was the subject of an advertisement in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (February 10, 1776).

“Runaway Negroes … going to the Governor.”

For several weeks in January and February 1776, the Virginia Gazette carried an advertisement about a canoe recovered from “some runaway Negroes” making their way down the James River.  John Watkins described the canoe and noted that the enslaved men also possessed “sundry Clothes, some of which were stolen, and have since been claimed by the Owners.”  He assumed that the remaining clothes belonged to the enslaved men.  Watkins offered the canoe to its rightful owner and the clothes to the enslavers of the Black men who sought to liberate themselves.  He did not, however, indicate that those men had been captured and imprisoned until their enslavers claimed them.  Perhaps the men managed to make their escape when Watkins seized the canoe.

Whatever happened, Watkins believed that the men “were going to Governor.”  That detail meant a lot to eighteenth-century readers of the Virginia Gazette and even more to enslaved people residing in the colony.  On November 7, 1775, John Murray, the earl of Dunmore and royal governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation that declared martial law in the colony.  He hoped to restore order as the fighting that started at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts spread to Virginia.  To that end, he “declare[d] all indented Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His MAJESTY’s Troops as soon as may be.”  In other words, Dunmore offered freedom to enslaved people (and indentured servants and other unfree laborers) who fled from their enslavers, joined his forces, and fought for the king (but only those Black people enslaved by Patriots since the governor did not want to alienate Loyalists).  As word spread, enslaved men, women, and children flocked to Dunmore’s lines.  The men who stole the canoe that Watkins advertised had good reason for acting when they did.  They recognized what may very well have been their best possible chance to make good on their escape and achieve freedom.  As colonizers complained about their figurative enslavement by Parliament, enslaved people saw this offer by the British as a beacon of liberty.  Several months later, the Declaration of Independence counted Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation among the many grievances against George III.  The charge that the king “has excited domestic insurrections amongst us” referred to Dunmore’s efforts to rally enslaved people to join him in fighting against the “Rebels” who opposed the king.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 10, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Constitutional Gazette (February 10, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (February 10, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (February 10, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (February 10, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published February 10, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Constitutional Gazette (February 10, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Ledger (February 10, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Ledger (February 10, 1776).

February 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (February 9, 1776).

“He remains the publick’s most obedient humble servant.”

When Archibald Diddep, a tailor in Williamsburg, wanted his customers to settle accounts, he resorted to an advertisement in Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette.  Merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and even printers frequently placed advertisements calling on their customers to pay for the goods and services they purchased on credit.  Sometimes they threatened legal action against those who did not submit payment shortly after such notices appeared in the public prints.  Diddep, on the other hand, used another strategy.

The tailor devised an advertisement that expressed his appreciation to his customers and solicited further business among the readers of the Virginia Gazette, nestling his address to those who owed him money among those other aspects of his notice.  He opened by stating that he “RETURNS his employers in general, and his old customers in particular, the most cordial thanks for past services.”  He then pledged that he “shall be ready to axecute any command which they may hereafter intrust him with.”  Yet he also wanted them to be aware of his circumstances that made it especially important that they make timely payment for the good service they received from the tailor.  “As his family is extensive, journeymens wages very high, and his creditors exceedingly solicitous for their due,” Diddep explained, “he hopes those whose accounts have been long standing will not take it amiss should he earnestly entreat them to make immediate payment.”  In other words, he did wish to bother customers who owed him money, but he wanted them to understand that he had a large family to feed, employees who earned a good living to pay, and creditors who were pressuring him.  The tailor hoped such appeals, playing on sympathy, would prove more effective than threatening to sue.  He also introduced a new policy, announcing that he expected customers “will not hesitate to tender down the cash so soon as their work is done” in the future.  Diddep politely discontinued credit at his shop.  Even with that softer touch, he did not conclude by focusing on finances.  Instead, he seized one last opportunity to generate business and highlight the quality of the service he provided.  “Ladies riding habits are still made by him,” he reminded readers.  For those who would give him business, he “remains the publick’s most obedient humble servant.”  It was a much softer approach than other newspaper notices that demanded customers settle accounts.